For more than three decades, Des Moines has been the can-do city, reshaping and rebuilding its downtown and grabbing national attention for its efforts. In many of its neighborhoods, however, the city didn’t.

As if city leaders needed reminding that there is trouble in the neighborhoods, a recent report put some hard numbers to what is obvious to anyone who steers off the main streets. Some neighborhoods are in need of serious improvement, others are holding their own but need attention to keep from sliding into disrepair; a relative handful are prospering.

According to the report, compiled after a series of trips to the city by representatives of Virginia-based consultant CZB LLC, property values in 16 neighborhoods increased above the rate of inflation between 2005 and 2016, values increased in 30 others, but below the rate of inflation; in the Cheatom Park neighborhood values actually dropped.

Those numbers are little surprise to city leaders. The Des Moines Neighborhood Revitalization Program has been in place since 1990, created after another consultant, Stockard & Engler Inc., was brought to town to suggest ways to reverse a decline in the neighborhoods.

Its report led to the current structure of the city’s Community Development Department and the creation of Neighborhood Finance Corp., Neighborhood Development Corp. and the Polk County Housing Trust Fund. In 2005, Stockard & Engler evaluated the Neighborhood Revitalization Program a second time. The messages from both visits was that neighborhoods should include more diverse economic backgrounds and the city’s efforts should include representatives from the neighborhoods.

Problem is, according to CZB, the same conditions exist in many neighborhoods today that were present when Stockard & Engler delivered its reports. 

“Between the parts of Des Moines doing spectacularly well like Ingersoll Park or River Woods and those in abject trouble  such as Capitol East, MLK Park, River Bend are two dozen in between neighborhoods like Union Park, Douglas Acres, Fairmont Park, Drake, Merle Hay, and Oak Park. These in-between neighborhoods are not in trouble, but they could be, and to lose them would imperil the city’s long-term fiscal health. The market strength of these middle neighborhoods is by no means a sure thing given the older housing stocks and compared to the suburbs the lower level of property owner reinvestment in homes,” according to CZB.

Efforts to stabilize and improve neighborhoods will be costly, but just as important is the need for a change in attitude among some property owners who have been all too willing to let the roof leak, gutters sag, paint chip and peel.

Beyond an infusion of cash and compassion, the city is showing the strains of demographic shifts. Too many people with high incomes and college degrees are living in the suburbs and not the city. 

“In 2000, the Des Moines median home value was 25 percent less than the county’s; by 2016 it was 34 percent less. The reason for this is simple: population growth outside the city is a function of the middle class buying homes in Polk County, reasoning they can have a great house and great schools in the suburbs and quick access to Des Moines’ fantastic downtown without being a city resident. At the same time, growth inside the city is being driven almost entirely by lower income immigrant households with limited financial resources,” according to the report.

Overall, city leaders are grappling with a complex issue, an issue that could stand at least one symbolic victory to generate momentum for a broader solution.

“You’ve got to come in with a couple of quick wins,” said Deputy City Manager Matt Anderson. He has veered off the main streets; he has seen the vitality of some neighborhoods and the distress and disrepair of others.

One that caught his attention was an area stretching from Roosevelt High School east to Drake University. 

“You have enough strength to build upon, but enough distress that you need to help it. You don’t have to sell people on buying a house in that neighborhood; they’re aware of it, they already like the Roosevelt district, they like the middle school and elementary school up there, and you are not fighting a market that is not already interested in the area. You’re just putting the tools in place to get the housing stock up,” he said.

According to CZB, that is the kind of neighborhood that might have been ignored by the city. The report found many faults in the city’s efforts to combat neighborhood decay, but singled out a focus on rescuing the worst while others withered.

The report also dovetails with an effort triggered by Capital Crossroads and led by the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech to identify the need for workforce housing. That effort begins with Des Moines and has been joined by several suburbs, the Polk County Housing Trust Fund and the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization. 

“There is definitely a relationship between the two,” said Amber Lynch, a neighborhood planner in the city’s Community Development Department. “Where you see it is in the [CZB] recommendations around what to do in our stronger neighborhoods, where you start to integrate more inclusive developments to respond to the workforce housing demands that we have.” 

With City Council support, addressing the neighborhood housing issue will occur over two time frames.

“In the near term, your goal is to eliminate as much drag as possible from a neighborhood. What are the properties really holding those blocks back from being healthy, holding other properties back from appreciating the way that they should, and how do you address each of those properties?” Lynch said. “In the long term, you still want to remove drag, but because there is so much of it, you can’t expect that the private market investment is going to follow quite as quickly. It stretches it out to a little bit longer time frame. We want to make sure we have safe homes, neighborhoods and blocks.”

Anderson said that in the most delinquent neighborhoods, the city could begin a land bank process to acquire abandoned houses. The land bank could handle much of the lengthy legal process involved in acquiring the houses, a process that private developers have little patience for.

In other neighborhoods, the reach of the Neighborhood Finance Corp. could be extended and its funding increased. The organization provides a range of lending opportunities for home purchases and upkeep.

Revitalizing neighborhoods also will cut across a range of departments, including police and parks and recreation, for example, Anderson said.

The issue of financing neighborhood revitalizations cannot be ignored. Anderson said that with direction from the City Council, it will be up to city staff to find financing mechanisms.

“It’s easy to focus in on the money,” he said. “I think the starting point with the council was to get them to understand and buy in to kind of the process, and let [City Manager Scott Sanders] and staff focus on how to get it done.” 

The GOOD
• Neighborhood associations have been established across much of Des Moines. 

• An extensive network of nonprofit organizations actively engaged in community development has emerged, with real contributions made towards important goals like affordable housing for low-income households. 

• The city’s planning and community development technical capacity is a notable strength. Planning is complex, and the city has a deep reservoir of talent to lean on in the development and implementation of coherent small area plans. 

• Individual properties that were in trouble have received positive attention. This is excellent, for it shows the capacity to finance a turnaround exists. 

• Many neighborhoods have built identities as well as the capacity to manage their relationships both to the development community and with city government. This is one of the most important yardsticks by which neighborhood health can be measured. 

• The neighborhood revitalization planning process has provided a rational system for focusing city government attention and scarce resources on city neighborhoods. 

THE BAD
• Suburban growth has continued at a steady pace. Meanwhile Des Moines, with the important exception of downtown, has not increased in population. This means Des Moines remains in catch-up mode and needs a clear plan to address this. 

• Real estate demand in the city’s core neighborhoods has remained weak, and in some cases has become weaker. As a flywheel effect in the wrong direction becomes ever more stubborn, the virtue of affordability — especially for new immigrant households with limited incomes — increasingly becomes the vice of distress. 

• The lack of real estate appreciation in the city’s taxable property base, deriving from soft residential property values, has created a structural gap between the cost of providing public services and the capacity to pay for them. 

• Physical condition of the housing stock in many neighborhoods is far below acceptable standards. Deterioration is widespread in core neighborhoods east and north of downtown, while only average conditions dominate most of the rest of the city. 

CZB LLC, Neighborhood Revitalization Planning Program Review, final report to the city of Des Moines